A rather shocking news to sellers who put up a low selling price and charge high on postage, hoping to reduce the amount of eBay fees to be paid.

eBay made a survey on those buyers who have left eBay, or who no longer buy as much as they used to, why they did so. One of the most common reasons quoted was buyers felt they have been overcharged for postage & packaging on their items.

So, the eBay team decided to take action on these listings. How?

eBay is able to identify clearly those sellers who are consistently rated poorly for postage and packaging charges based on Detailed Seller Ratings feedback. As a result, eBay will be introducing some changes to the way search results are displayed this December.

Sellers who regularly receive the lowest scores on postage & packaging costs will get significantly reduced visibility in default search results, that is, their items will appear much further down the list.

All sellers whose Detailed Seller Ratings for postage & packaging are 3.9 or below will be affected, which is about 0.5% of total sellers on eBay.

This new rules will be introduced during the week beginning December 17th, after the main Christmas shopping period is over.

My Say

Take note if you have been overcharging your customers on postage and packaging!

Is it also time eBay look at their fees structure why sellers lower their selling price by padding them on postage and packaging? Many sellers have raised concern over this at the forum

I am not sure if this is a good idea, since buyers usually wants prices to be as low as possible. Even if you are giving out free shipping, you still don’t get full 5 stars for Detailed Ratings under postage. Will this penalising be fair to all eBay sellers? Or are eBay driving more sellers away?